‘Once Upon a Time’ Recap, Season 3, Episode 6, ‘Ariel’

Tonight on “Once Upon a Time,” the focus is on Ariel’s backstory and the rescue of Neal.

We open in Fairy Tale, where the Evil Queen’s guards chase Snow to a precipice over an Adirondack-looking lake. Rather than be taken captive, Snow leaps in. It should kill her, but she is rescued by a friendly female: Ariel the mermaid, who confesses that she’s in love with Eric, a prince that she rescued and hasn’t been able to forget. She looks just like the cartoon. She shows Snow an invitation she found to a ball, and then turns her tail into legs which are now in a mermaid-style skirt. She can do this, she says, because of (retrofitted) mermaid mythology, which is that the goddess Ursula allows mermaids the ability to walk on land for 12 hours every year during the ball, until the next high tide.

Cut to Never Land. Hook tells the landing party that Neal is alive and on the island. Go Hook! Maybe there won’t be a drawn-out triangle after all. Regina is disgusted and stalks off to find Rump, who had just been taunted by Pan. “Even if you did save them, which you won’t, no one will ever forgive you for the horrible things you’ve done,” Pan told him. Regina finds Rump getting a pep talk from imaginary Belle, who wants him to come home. Regina chokes imaginary Belle, who turns into the shadow. “Look who you’re really dealing with,” Regina says. He says he can only stop Pan by dying, but Regina replies that he won’t die by anyone’s hands but her own. Which is kind of awesome.. He has an idea for a fate for Pan worse than death, but needs something in his shop. So, they will cross realms, go back to the shop and get it, she says.

At the ball, Snow tutors a giggly Ariel about silverware, which are forks, not tridents. Handsome prince Eric asks Ariel to dance. He recognizes her from his recurring dreams, thinking she’s a vision of his future sent by Ursula. He invites her to come on a grand expedition in the morning, then realizes he’s moving to fast, and tells her she can show up or not the next morning. It’s not exactly a marriage proposal, but I guess it’s all we’ll get.

Regina, watching in the magic mirror, grimaces at the love scene, and magically twists the neck of one guard. Redemption arc or not, Regina was truly evil once upon a time.

Pan orders Neal to be taken to the Echo Cave. “The game is about to become interesting,” he says. We still don’t know who’s in the other cage.

Snow advises Ariel to be honest. It’s a dilemma, since the next day Ariel will have a tail again. Ariel goes to the edge of the sea to ask Ursula what to do. Just as Ariel expresses frustration Ursula, beautiful, blonde and tentacled, appears. Ursula offers her a bargain to keep her legs. The next thing we see is Ariel approaching Snow on the dock at dawn, with legs, able to speak. She puts a bracelet on Snow, who turns into a mermaid. That was the price. Ariel’s so innocent, she doesn’t understand that this is a bad decision. And it turns out that Ursula is a myth, as Snow feared, because just then Regina, the evil queen, appears. I knew that blonde looked familiar. Snow can’t take the bracelet off. Regina starts to kill Snow with a spell, when Ariel stabs her in the neck with a “salad trident.” Ariel wrests the bracelet off of Snow, and they dive into the water.

As the landing party tramp toward Neal, Emma says she kissed Hook. Snow tells her she deserves a happy ending and those begin with hope. The Charmings and Hook approach Echo Cave. Hook tells them that the cave demands a truth. Neal is in a cage across a chasm. Hook begins by saying, “I kissed Emma.” Emma wonders how that’s his darkest secret: but it is, because he never thought he’d ever be capable of letting go of his first love, his Mila. The ground shakes, and a little bit of bridge appears. Snow reveals that though she loves Emma, she’s not O.K. with missing her whole childhood. She wants to have another baby when they get off this island. Lots more bridge. Charming says nothing would make him happier, but it can never happen with him. because he’s been hit with dreamshade and if he leaves, he’ll die. The bridge extends. Emma tries to hack at the cage, but Neal says that’s not how it works. So Emma reveals that she never stopped loving him. Oh. Triangle it is then. Her secret was that she was hoping he was dead because it would be easier to put it behind them than to face going through the pain again. The cage dissolves.

A mopey Hook leads the party out, and says they should go get Tinker Bell and go home. Neal says he has a secret too, that he will never stop fighting for her. Pretty Hook stands in the bushes.

In Fairy Tale past, Snow, with legs, crawls onto land and advises Ariel to tell Eric the truth. Eric is waiting for her. Ariel swims up and tries to shout at him, but now—now—she has no voice.Oh no! How will Ariel get her happy ending? “I told you there’d be no second chances,” Regina says, sitting on the dock. She took Ariel’s voice, so she would never even have a chance at true love. The real Ursula appears in Regina’s mirror as she stalks home, feeling good about herself. Ursula’s tentacles come out and threaten her.

In Never Land, Regina picks up a shell, not to order calamari, but to find Ariel. Mermaids can travel across realms, but can’t be trusted, Rump says. Regina gives Ariel her voice, and offers to give the mermaid what she wants: her legs. And also, the place that she sends her holds, among its residents, Prince Eric. It’s called Storybrooke.

Have we met him yet? What do you think? Will Ursula return? Who’s in the cage?

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